


Used To Be

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-03-15
Updated: 2001-03-15
Packaged: 2018-11-20 13:10:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11336199
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Scully muses on her relationship with Mulder and his relationships with others.





	Used To Be

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

Used to Be by Merri-Todd Webster

DISCLAIMER: Just for the record--I wouldn't *want* to own these characters. My budgie is as high-maintenance as I want to get.  
Summary, Warnings, Etc.: Scully muses on her relationship with Mulder and Mulder's relationships with others.  
Hetsmut warning! Some description of m/f sexual relationship and concomitant acts. Slash warning! References to m/m sexual relationships but not acts. Angst warning! Scully in frozen bitch mode (can we all say "black suit and high heels"?)  
Thanks to Te, our own beloved ListButchDaddyMama, for allowing me to post this here.

* * *

**********************  
Used to Be  
by Merri-Todd Webster  
(30 November 1998)  
**********************

I used to be in love with him.

It was a long time ago. Before the first closing of the X-Files, before the abduction, before Krycek. Before I lost everything.

I used to be in love with him. I used to want him. Wanted the casual yet careful touches on my back, my shoulder, my arm. Wanted to see him smile, really smile. Wanted to see him naked when he wasn't wounded, bleeding, needing doctoring. Wanted the teasing double entendres to mean something.

I used to want him for a lover, my lover. I used to ache for him, used to touch myself with greedy hands while thinking of him. Imagining that my hair was his hair, my hands were his hands, my own voice talking dirty was his, urging me on.

Yes, I used to be in love with Mulder. And for a while, I thought he was in love with me.

We were lovers and it was good, very good. Sex has never been easy for me, and he got past the barriers, got me to relax. The way he knew how to touch me was uncanny. Spooky, though I never used the word.

We used to lie in bed for hours and he would eat me, use his mouth on me, not asking anything until he'd made me come three or four times. He knew just when to back off, just hold me, and just when to dive in, use his tongue on me roughly. When he was satisfied that I was satisfied, he'd roll me into the position he wanted and fuck me, hard, fast, it was over quick and I'd have one more blinding orgasm, usually when he did. It was really good.

It all changed after my abduction. He was afraid of me. Afraid of hurting me, maybe, or afraid of losing me again. I don't know. And I was afraid of him, afraid his touch might make me remember something. I never admitted it, but I had nightmares about what might have happened. Isn't every woman's nightmare to be treated as an object--to be touched, manipulated, handled, without love? It would have been better to remember for certain than to have the missing memories, missing months.

Gradually we drew apart. We were still friends, as well as partners, but eventually it became clear we weren't lovers any more. I think we were still in love, for a while, or at least I was in love with him, and we still slept together for sometimes, he slept over at my place as he used to. We both slept better when we shared a bed.

Something happened, somewhere. It was Krycek, I want to think. He got to Mulder, somehow, in spite of everything, the murders, the betrayals. In the first flush of our romance, Mulder told me he was bisexual, he'd been with men as well as women. He'd laughed, shamefacedly, and said he had better luck with men in relationships. I didn't think it mattered then. I thought our loving one another would make everything better. I really believed that, briefly. But now I want to blame Krycek for that last and bitterest loss, the loss of Mulder. I can't let myself believe that it was just me, just the walls I erected, my cowardly need to protect myself. Oh, yes, I'm a coward. I've got more armor than Joan of Arc. Still, I'm no maiden. I've been touched, fucked, I've loved, and now--

It's over.

I miss it. Not so much Mulder as just the sex, to be honest. My memories of that are clear and vivid, and sometimes I still masturbate while I think of him, remembering some incident that really happened. The time he took me in the shower and nearly threw out his back. The way he used to talk to me when I was on top, telling me to fuck him, telling me how beautiful I was. The long, shuddering orgasms I got from his insatiable mouth.

I look at him today and I can hardly remember that it's the same person, the same Mulder who loved me and teased me and make me laugh and made me come. Something in him, too, has gotten harder and colder. It's not just me. And when he comes to work looking debauched, I'm not the reason. And I know who is.

I think he was actually involved with Skinner for a while. Insanity. But an insanity I understood. I wish I could trust Skinner as much as Mulder does, but it just isn't in me. At least he was happy, and that was easier on me. And he did trust Skinner, and Skinner is, well, just a man, his boss, yes, but an ordinary person.

Not a killer. Not an enemy. Not a nightmare in human form.

I look at him, look at his swollen mouth, see his eyes slide away, and I know, I know he's been with Krycek. I will never ask him--he'd only deny it--but what do I need to ask when I know? I know that some--many--maybe even most of those anonymous tips we follow up come from Krycek. I know who he's talking to when he won't carry on the conversation in front of me.

If there were another woman--yes, ironic, but I think of it that way--if there were another woman, I think I could still be happy for Mulder. It's not totally inconceivable that I could meet someone, after all. Have something approximating a normal life, even now. Mulder would smile, even now, and say, "I'm happy for you, Scully," and mean it, and I could find it in myself, even now, to be happy for him, if his happiness were anything but what it is--Krycek.

Happiness. Like it's anything like that. No, love or sex or whatever he calls it, with Krycek, is just one more self-punishment delivered by Fox Mulder to Fox Mulder. Once long ago I thought I could free him of that. Not so long ago I thought I could keep him from dragging me into it, dragging me under with him. Once I thought death would set me free from Mulder's trap. Now I know that nothing can separate us, no matter how much we hurt each other, no matter how little we have left to give. I used to be happy about that.

I'm not any more.

********

end


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